RAINSTORM!

August 3rd, 2013 by Larry Varney

by Larry Varney

Co-Editor

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not some couch potato, wishing my dog would learn how to retrieve things from the kitchen for me to munch on. On the other hand, I’m not going to be featured in some biopic about how I climbed Mt. Everest in the dead of winter, living off of insects I found frozen in the ice. I have done an unsupported bike tour – once. It was nice, and I’ll probably do more. But, I do like supported tours, leaving the tote-and-carry to someone else, giving me the luxury of just riding. Still, I do occasionally think of riding outside my comfort zone, finding something that hopefully won’t result in my lying in a pool of mud and blood, jabbering incoherently. I try to be a little more sensible when it comes to picking my challenges.

So, how does this sound to you? Six days, 660 miles. Does the soundtrack of “The Omen” start playing in your head? Or are you curious, wanting to know more about this sometimes-appropriately-named event? If it’s the latter, read on!

Some of you may be familiar with a portion of this event – the “RAIN” part. It’s the Ride Accross INdiana, 160 miles from Terre Haute to Richmond. I’ve ridden it twice – impressive, right? Seriously, though it sounds horrendous, if you’re riding a comfortable bike, and can maintain a speed somewhere in the mid-teens, it’s not that difficult. Most of the route is on US Route 40, four lanes of relatively low traffic, with no major hills. On the other hand, if either of those conditions result in you shaking your head instead of nodding, you might want to either forget about the rest of this article, or get a more comfortable bike and start exercising.

And the reason I say that is because, in RAINSTORM, the RAIN part is the easier! In my opinion, anyway. STORM stands for “Same Thing Only Ride More.” The five days prior to RAIN, you take a nice, scenic tour of south-central Indiana, meandering from Richmond to Terre Haute, the start of RAIN. Along the way you have overnights at several state parks (Brown County, Clifty Falls and Spring Mill), as well as the cities of Bloomington and Terre Haute. You’ll carry and pitch your own tents – no, wait, this may be a challenge, but they don’t rub salt into your wounds!

No, at each of those parks you’ll have a nice room at the lodge, with breakfasts and dinner served at the restaurants there. The food is buffet-style, plentiful and delicious. Don’t worry about eating too much – you’re going to burn off those calories the next day. Did I mention how many miles you ride each day? How does an average of 100 miles sound to you? A century per day, and they aren’t flat, either. While the hills-with-names of the Hilly Hundred are thankfully not included, their lesser-known cousins are. The roads are mostly rural with low traffic, but they don’t avoid all the climbs. Be sure to have a good granny! Heading toward the start of RAIN, you’ll stay in hotels in Bloomington and Terre Haute. Cities provide many places to eat, so you’re on your own there when it’s dinner time.

This is a very scenic tour, with lots of photo ops, especially in and near the state parks. Indiana has some of the best I’ve visited. The organizers take care of the luggage transport, and there is a mechanic on the staff to help out if something bad happens to your ride. And, about every 20 miles or so are SAG stops, some at local establishments where you buy your own snacks, but others in the more remote stretches are manned by the tour’s staff.